A Tale Dark & Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz  
Dutton / Penguin 2010 

An award-worthy collection of Grimm tales retold as a continuous narrative about the adventures of Hansel and Gretel.  Bloody. Violent. Just the way Grimm's tales ought to be.   

In the Kingdom of Grimm there lived two children named Hansel and Gretel.  What we are told of their story in "classic" editions of the stories is that they found a house made of gingerbread in the woods and were captured by a witch to be eaten, but managed to escape and return home.  Ah, but that's not the "true" or complete version of the story, now, is it?  It's what happened before that makes them run away, and before that it's how their parents are fated to meet.  And after escaping the witch, as they go in search of "better" parents, they continue to drift through familiar Grimm tales, losing fingers and beheading kings and battling dragons...  

Not the Grimm you know?  Perhaps not Hansel and Gretel, but each of the adventures is based on tales collected by the Brothers Grimm with their gore and horror in tact.  The device of using Hansel and Gretel as stand-ins for other generic characters in the tales is actually quite a brilliant move and it gives the reader some grounding through some pretty bizarre territory.  Readers of the original tales will smile in recognition as stories yield their origins and their outcomes hurl the children further along on their quest.   

In using Grimm's tales it is impossible to ignore the tales source material.  Hansel and Gretel's parents, the way they meet and the destiny foretold by three crows, betrays its Greek roots. Later, as Hansel is forced to trick the devil, echos of the medeavel morality plays can be heard.  Many of the Grimm's tales were drawn from other sources, modified and updated to meet its audience, so they can't help but carry their generational DNA from the past.  What's remarkable is how well all these influences play together with each other.  The hero's journey and the heroes themselves become our constant, our narrative point of reference, through the madness that often lives in the fairy tale realm. Hansel and Gretel leave home innocent children and return home triumphant, having earned right to reign through trial and tribulation and collected wisdom.  

What I love, and what might keep this book from being considered for any children's book awards (and, yes, I do believe it deserves that sort of recognition), is that Gidwitz has retained the gore and violence of the original tales. He plays off of it with interjecting passages that speak directly to the reader, warning them that things are going to get hairy, and perhaps younger children should leave the room. Clearly Gidwitz believes, rightly so, that kids can handle the blood and guts and on some level want it. He trusts young readers – which is more than can be said for a lot of writers these days – and knows that by promising them it will be okay in the end that they can handle anything.  Things go from bad to worse, and Gidwitz clearly alerts readers along the way, but he gains more trust and respect as a storyteller by not pulling his punches and playing with the tension by humorously teasing readers with a promise delivered. 

Having just missed the cutoff date for the recent 2010 Cybils I only hope it doesn't get forgotten come October when the nominations open up again.  I also wouldn't mind seeing some Horn Book love, and maybe an ALA sticker.  Yeah, I know it's early and there are still plenty of books to come.  That doesn't change anything.

Meanwhile

Pick Any Path. 3,856 Possibilities 
by Jason Shiga 
Amulet / Abrams 2010  

2010 Cybils Winner for Middle Grade Graphic Novels 

It seems like such a small decision – chocolate or vanilla ice cream? – but whichever one the reader chooses for Jimmy will send them both down one of 3,856 paths.  Some paths lead to death and the end of the world as we know it, some lead to a parallel dimension, some sort of loop back around to the beginning. Time travel is involved, and a squid (sort of). Jimmy's initial choice of flavors is what sets the story hurling toward a trio of inventions, the luck of a coin toss, and the reader's memory of an access code that alters and reshapes the story along the way. 

What would happen if you mashed up a choose-your-own-adventure (COYA) story with a graphic novel?  Meanwhile is the answer.  Everyone starts at the same place, but the choices they make along the way determine the outcome of the story.  Like the CYOA stories, many of the choices lead to death and so presents the reader with challenge of making the right choices in order to survive.  The difference is that the CYOA stories left readers with an emotional or moral dilemma on which to peg their decisions, but in Meanwhile decisions are sometimes simply a question of blind luck.  Sort of like life where the smallest of hesitations can have profound effects.  

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Those 3,856 paths are a bit of a technical inflation: the book does not contain that many actual stories or endings.  Where some paths diverge and follow one set of story ideas they will eventually come back to a one of a few shared end strand.  I haven't mapped the book out – I'm sure that sounds like a fun activity for some people – but if you've ever wondered what a CYOA-type book looked like mapped out, check out this link. Despite The Mystery of Chimney Rock having only 44 choices and 36 endings it does add up to a crazy-big number of "possibilities."  It's no surprise that Shiga's book plays up the numbers as he is not only a cartoonist but a mathematician.

The technique for making choices is unique and worth note. Each panel of the graphic novel has a little "tube" that connects it with the next panel in sequence.  These tubes, either by choice or by necessity of space, run off the edge of the pages and onto tabs that lead the reader to the next page. Following the tabs sends the reader backward and forward (like a time traveler, if you will) through the story, but the tubes do more than that.  By directing the reader across the page in this fashion, Shiga can place three or four separate sequences on a page that may have no connection to one another.  They are impossible for the reader to ignore (like telling a jury to forget what they have just heard) and so these extraneous panels become a tease to the reader.  Will they end up back at this page in the future?  If so, how do these panels connect?  And if the reader doesn't make it back to that page, they at least have knowledge of it, which means that once they've finished one run through the story they have seen glimpses of Jimmy's parallel lives and can be enticed back into the story to see if they can find a particular strand.  This layout, while showing all the paths along the way, makes it nearly impossible to casually flip through the book.  No single page makes any sense without knowing what comes before or after which forces the reader start from the beginning and rethink their path.

But what about the story itself?  Shiga takes the element of time travel and the reader's physical interaction with the book to explain and demonstrate the concept of infinite universes existing in parallel time. Just as the reader can flip between stories and change paths if they want to see where their decisions might have lead them, the various story lines exist in a parallel world (the book) where only the separation of pages prevents the characters from seeing "what might have been." It's the kind of a thing that will either wash right over a reader, expand their thinking about time and space, or just blow their minds. 

As a reading experience though the book can become quickly tiring.  Once you get the gist of several possibilities, once you've encountered a few endings or doubled over the same path a couple of times, you become tired of reading what is, essentially, a very short story with little character development or emotional investment. There is a certain adherence to fate in that there are a limited number of characters and locations that the story takes place in, suggesting that no matter which path the main character takes, they will eventually come to the same places and meet the same people.  Only the decisions change. In our daily lives we often fantasize about what small decision would change our lives and our experiences, and if I had a main criticism for Meanwhile it would be that for all its paths the scenery remains fairly limited.

This book is a natural for an entire generation wired into video games, who have learned through "multiple lives" that trial and error will eventually lead them to the most satisfying ending they can find.  It's a great approach for creatives and those who like a good puzzle with their reading.  Too bad our daily lives don't allow us to backtrack and explore alternate paths the same way.  At least not in this particular universe we're in.

The Small Adventures of Popeye and Elvis

by Barbara O'Connor
FSG 2009

A small slice of life on a backroad of South Carolina with perhaps the most passive main character I've read in a long time.

Popeye, so nick-named when a b-b gun left it's mark on his left eye, is the kind of quiet, withdrawn kid who would hunger for an adventure if he had the gumption to do so. So when a mobile home gets stuck in the gravel road in front of Popeye's house one rainy night, Popeye's heart rate nearly increases with the possibilities. The next day five kids tumble out to explore the place where they are newly struck and - does Popeye dare to disturb the universe? - an adventure is afoot. Maybe.

A boy named Elvis, about the same age as Popeye, is among the stranded clan, a fearless, cussing, adventurer of the first degree. Popeye takes Elvis to a nearby creek and together they discover small boats made of Yoohoo drink boxes with mysterious messages inside. What do the messages mean? Where are they coming from? What's further up the creek? Popeye doesn't know because he's never thought to go exploring on his own, so it falls to Elvis to drive their exploration up the river to solve the mystery. If it were up to Popeye, who marvels at every turn at Elvis's brash language and free spirit, Popeye would sit in his room and stair at a stain in the ceiling listening to a clock going tick tick tick...

In Tolstoy's world, this is a "stranger comes to town" story, and Elvis is sort of a catalyst for Popeye's sort of coming out of his shell. I say sort of because at no point does Popeye articulate what he wants beyond vague longing, and he continues to tag along with Elvis like a pathetic puppy with hardly an original thought of his own. As the adults spend days trying to dislodge the motor home - and they're about as slow to get this taken care of as an elephant in a molasses pit, a bit of authorial deus ex machina if ever there was one - there is a palpable hope in the reader that Popeye is going to break out of his shell and stop being a wimp. But the open ending doesn't suggest Popeye has really changed and that this one quiet, sad little adventure may be the highpoint of his life.

Lacking a character-driven desire or conflict, The Small Adventures of Popeye and Elvis reads like an overly long short story, a meditation on life literally off the beaten path in a world with a vague nostalgic feel to it that seems all the more sad for what it lacks. Things sort of happen, with the overall effect being "Yes, and the point of it all is...?"

Kin

The Good Neighbors, Book 1
by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
Scholastic Graphix 2008

The set-up for this graphic novel is about as generic as you an get: mopey teenage Rue's mother has disappeared and her father is suspected of murder. Of course, like every teen novel where a parent is accused of murder, the teenage protagonist knows it can't be so, and in searching out the truth that other inept adults cannot fathom (and adults always have to be clueless for this type of story to work) discovers a family truth, a secret buried and kept from our teen hero who is coming to terms with who they are in the world.

Now, since this is author Holly Black's world that hidden element needs to be something a little more... fantastical, shall we say? So the truth is that Rue's mother is a faerie, and her disappearance has to do with a betrayal by her father that has sent her back into the faerie realm. Rue now has to navigate finding her place in two worlds, and all sorts of mortal and immortal conflicts must be quelled. Eventually.

I don't think I can say flat out that fantasy is not my thing, but I can say that I'm a little tired of vampires (or vampyres), and this reminds me of nothing less than a vampire story swapped out with faeries (or fairies). I suppose there are those deeply invested in the milieu who will berate me for failing to appreciate the subtleties between these two worlds, but here all I can see is another story of "otherness" that pits a halfling between parallel worlds. With the waning of vampires (who took over when interest in boy wizards dropped off) we're seeing the crest of other fantasy elements vying to take over, and faeries are going to have it out with zombies in the very near future of YA literature. I suspect the unicorn contingent (and I mean brutish, violent unicorns, not those My Pretty Pony poseurs) will no doubt follow.

Personal preference aside, I never cared for Rue, never felt like I could relate to her. Maybe it was a double-blind on my part -- a brooding girl AND a faerie halfling -- but whatever, Black never gave me a well rounded portrait of a character I could latch onto. I didn't buy the handling of the murder, or her father's arrest, or their family "friend" who may be at the root of why Rue's mother disappeared. Never mind Rue's ability to go unseen and the fact that her invisibility and disappearance seems to go unnoticed by others around her, or that her friends are flatter than the pages they're drawn on.

Visually, the illustrations felt stiff. It's something I'm noticing more and more, perhaps it's always been there and I'm just now seeing it, but it feels like graphic novels aimed at teens are drawn in a very lifeless way. I find myself looking for the traditional action lines in the characters and the compositions, something that givens them life. A still from a Bugs Bunny cartoon is more expressive, and in the end with graphic novels aren't visuals half your story? If you want a reader (okay, me) to buy into a fantasy world you're going to have to convince me that it's something more that shrouded bunches of trees and creeping ivy. It has to live and breath under its own rules, but it has to express some sort of movement. Even the cheap-o animation of the 1950s had some of the best and expressive backgrounds created in the history of cartoons. You can't tell me it's impossible to achieve the same effects in a black and white graphic novel fifty years later.

Oh yeah, this book lingers in the back of my throat like acid reflux.

As this was one of the finalists for the Cybils in the YA graphic novel category I felt like I really had to make sure I put all these emotional responses at bay and come to terms with whether or not I felt it best represented what was available this past year. The most compelling reason I felt it didn't deserve the win was that the story really is only the first part of a larger story. Too many untied threads, to much left up in the air, ultimately not a stand-alone title. It's unfortunate that every year series titles are pushed through the Cybils because invariably the consensus is that they don't hold up against stand-alone titles and take up space in the final panel that could really make for more of a contest and less a process of elimination.

In the end it hardly mattered, the judges were near unanimous in their decision on Emiko Superstar.

Cybils 08

The awards are up, a valentine for kidlit from the bloggers who love them. It's nice to see a number of books I actually read made it. You can read my take on the non-fiction picture book award winner, Lightship, as well as the middle grade fiction winner, A Crooked Kind of Perfect.

The Awards are over here.

You should see what this chucklehead has to say about the graphic novels. Sheesh!

2007 Cybils Graphic Novel Finalists

The second round of Cybils nominations went up this morning, including the Graphic Novel category for which I am a judge this year. Going in was a little nervous that perhaps I would be at sea in this category, that I'd have a lot of reading to catch up on once they shortlists were posted.

Nope, most I either already own or have read. Actually, only one title was new to me. I'm not saying which because I don't want to suggest that somehow it is a lesser title and automatically on the outs.

I was about to say that 'd reviewed more than half the nominees here but a quick look through the archives prove that is not true. It's no secret to me that I read far more than I can review -- time, the avenger! -- but I was certain I had something to say about a couple of unrepresented titles in the past.

Overall I'm very happy with the shortlist and am looking forward to seeing how all this plays out. If you haven't checked out the nominees in all the categories, or haven't got a clue about the Cybils at all, head on over to Cybil Central and check it out.

News & Notes

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, what with getting the girls into a new school routine, the wife starting a new high-power job, getting accepted to grad school, writing reviews for The Horn Book Guide, building a new blog, blah, blah, blah.

Here's the deal. I am backlogged with dozens of reviews I just haven't found the time to get down and one of these days, pretty soon, the floodgates are going to open. This blog has it's one year anniversary coming very soon and I'll be dropping a more full news announcement then about some changes (all for the good) coming from the knowledge lair at the excelsior file.

In the meantime, the Second Annual Cybils are coming up and after spending the past year kicking myself for not participating in the inaugural run I find myself on this year's graphic novel committee. Yeee! You can click on the link above for general info, but here's the line-up for the graphic novel group.

Category Organizer: Sarah Stevenson (Reading YA: Readers' Rants)

Nominating Panel:

Mary Lee Hahn (A Year of Reading)
Alyssa Feller (The Shady Glade)
Katie Zenke (Pixie Palace)
Elizabeth Jones
Gina Ruiz (AmoXicalli)

Judging Panel:

David Elzey (The Excelsior File)
J.L. Bell (Oz and Ends)
Anna (TangognaT)
Snow Wildsmith (My Reading Project)
Angie Thompson (Angieville)

Wow. This is going to be a wild ride. I better keep my hands and arms inside the blog at all times! In the meantime I have to go run some errands. Hopefully I'll be up to speed within the next couple of days. So much to talk about!

Is it time we revisit the Grimmoire?